


Waking up to: Ancestry

by theMiragePrismatic



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, I only tag main characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMiragePrismatic/pseuds/theMiragePrismatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Assassin's Creed Fans wake up slowly as they sit up after another session in the Animus, while Desmond says “Alright. My turn.”…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking up to: Ancestry

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my hard drive forever and I am screaming in frustration. I've never been able to play and it's been awhile since I watched Assassin's Creed 1 and 2.
> 
> Edited: 9/10/2016

Falling asleep in the Animus as an ancestor was weird because then it would be so cross between her own dreams and the ancestors dream as she 'woke up' in her own time, back in the warehouse.

“Easy there...slowly...”

Alexine blinked her eyes opened, the last vestiges of the Animus's gray-white cyberscape fading from her internal vision. She was reclining comfortably in the red seat of the Animus she privately called Ruby, staring at the exposed red pipes of the warehouse's workspace.

“Hey,” She rolled her head to the side, seeing fellow Animus user, Desmond who had pulled up a chair and was half bent over her, looking concerned. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

She looked between the Vulcan hand sign and Desmond, faintly hearing Lucy and Shaun bickering in the background and Rebecca anxiously muttering over her machine. “...Are you kidding, Miles?”

There was a ghost of a smile as he dropped his hand. “She's fine.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy broke away from her argument with Shaun to approach the youngest member of the team.

“Of course I am.” Alexine managed to keep her tone more incredulous and impatient than the snappish she was feeling. “I was dropped in a weird memory space not a black hole.”

“That was weird.” Desmond said. “That was you. Was she...relieving her own memories?”

“No,” said Alexine impatiently.

“Well, I don't know what that was.” Rebecca sounded ready to tear apart the Animus to figure out that oddity. “A glitch in the Animus?”

“Felt like an alternate life,” Alexine commented, earning a quartet of speculative staring. “What?”

“Now, that would be something Abstergo might be interested in...” Shaun hummed.

“An alternate life? Like...another dimension?” Desmond asked.

“Whatever it was, it's not important to what we're trying to do,” Lucy said and Alexine repressed an eye roll. “Unless Alexine's having some problems, Rebecca?”

“No, no, nothing's wrong with her,” the other woman assured her. “But I do want to run a few diagnostics before we send Desmond in. And we got set back by that jaunt...”

“How long was I under anyway?”

“Only twenty minutes,” Lucy said.

“Then I can go back in again; Desmond's break isn't over anyway.”

“I agree; we have no idea when the Templars will find us; with you taking both of them out of Abstergo I'm betting they'll find us sooner than later.” Shaun interjected.

“And we can't push them too hard.” Lucy retorted. “Why don't you two take a breather – practice some of those skills?”

Alexine grumbled, ignoring Desmond's hand and standing – and immediately regretted it when her vision tilted. An arm hauled her to a strong side before she could face plant and she slammed her eyes closed, head spinning.

“Whoa,”

“Break, break,” Rebecca presses.

“Come on now, we're on a bit of schedule,” Shaun chides. “Let's not pass out,”

“Shaun!”

“She's fine,” Desmond said, his voice a little too harsh. “We still have a good amount food in here, right?”

“MREs, dried fruit etc,” Lucy confirmed. “Take a breather; we'll run an Animus check. Get Alexine less...ill.”

“Right.”

“I can walk,” she said stubbornly when Desmond practically dragged her off.

“We're called a brotherhood for a reason,”

“It should be called 'Kinship' or something. And 'we'?”

Desmond frowned, shaking his head. “They. Us. Nevermind. Come on, us kidnap victims should stick together.”

Since they swapped off Animus shifts, they didn't really get to talk all that much, except during meal times composed of their choice of dry food.

“Looked pretty boring honestly.” Desmond said. “Normal.”

“It was weird.” Alexine said. She'd been expecting her (captured and shipped off to Europe) Mohawk ancestress again, rescuing fellow captives and cutting a swath through 16th century Madrid for the Mohawk artifact that was stolen from sacred ground and instead she got not-her. Alternate her?

The 'kitchen' is a pantry set up with some dishes, electric plate, a hot pot and dry foods with only two chairs which suits their purposes since Desmond and Alexine are the only ones who use the kitchen.

They have soup because sometimes Alexine and Desmond get sick at the idea of eating anything more solid. Apples, nectarines (because they are hard fruits that don't spoil quickly or easily), hard tack, dried meat, water, nutella for rare sweetness.

There's only two chairs because only the two Animus syncers eat in here; the others eat at their workstations.

“Can you walk? See?”

Alexine cautiously tries opening her eyes and slams them shut – now there are ghosts at the edges of her vision and her throat goes dry as Death Valley.

Desmond guides her to a chair where she puts her head down on the crappy fold out table and in a few minutes some tea and fruit is pushed in front of her.

She chews slowly and mechanically not because she wants to but because food is necessary for survival and she should do it outside the Animus.

“...Will you be okay?”

It's a better question than: “Are you okay?” because it's obvious it's just said out of obligation or by the time the words are said the person is definitely not okay.

“...In a bit,”

They chew in silence, Alexine still keeping her eyes closed.

Outside of their ride here, silent chewing and comparing Animus notes, they didn't really chat it up and she was even distant with Lucy. Granted the person monitoring her sessions at Abstergo was just another minion and as far she had been concerned two random ass strangers had burst into the room and disabled (or killed) the Doctor and the minion (well, Lucy did), gotten her out of the Animus and dragged her through Abstergo only to shove her into the trunk of a car with a strange guy while said strange guy introduced himself as 'Desmond' and 'I know it's been a weird day but I just want to get away from those people and out of this trunk as much as you do' and tried to bring her up to speed.

“I think...” she said slowly. “That it was a weird ...precursor thing.”

“Come again?”

“Like...what I don't get is that these...let's call them 'mystical beings' - they lived before us. We know about freaking dinosaurs but missed a whole super-advanced civilization? With...technology that's so beyond us, it's might as well be magic?”

That was odd. Desmond stared into space for a long moment before shrugging helplessly. “Ancient conspiracy?” he paused. “Well...they appear...in our myths.” Here he made quotations with his hands. “And legends. The bible. Someone created us; guess they weren't wrong. It just wasn't... from above. I mean... Camelot may have been real. Or not.”

“That's true I guess. But seriously.” she grumbled. “My mother's been insisting that's there's a long game conspiracy in the world and I'm like: no, mom, humans make their own errors and everything just falls together in a gambit pileup.”

“You wish she was wrong.”

“Oh yeah. I mean, I still think some things just...fall into place. Weren't planned.”

He nods.

“Because no matter how long your game, shit happens, life throws us for a loop – people who are good at it though can take advantage of the loops, you know?”

Desmond nods again. “Sounds pretty reasonable to me. So, knowing there's loops – it makes you feel better?”

“If life throws wrenches into the machine, we can take advantage and wreck their day,” she confirms. “Which...is where we come in in this, I suppose.”

She sips at her tea before it gets too cold; its Shaun's. He was both impressed someone else drank it rather than that 'black brew' but upset he had to share.

“So...I think the normal life I saw was...one life I could have had.”

“...But does that mean, we're not just living it, we're there and here?”

Sh shrugged. “Weird precursor things.”

It seems that their lives could be summed up with: ancient conspiracies or weird Abstergo shit or weird precursor shit these days. It was a little depressing.

With some food in her, Alexine tries opening her eyes and is relived that she sees no ghostly figures and her vision isn't slanting insanely.

“All good?”

“For now,”

She looks vaguely annoyed when he goes to help her up again. “Miles,”

“Lockleer,” he mimics. And then: “Are you still mad about the trunk?”

That was out of the blue. She gives him a look. “No, you were a perfect gentleman.”

Ah, she was still annoyed with Lucy for shoving her in a trunk with a (then) strange man.

“Just...” she sighs. “Thank you, Desmond.”

“You're welcome.”

He was right – them kidnap victims did need to stick together. No one else here knew what the Animus felt like – the experience, the rush.

Desmond lets her walk under her own power and she does feel a lot better.

They wound up in the sensor room where Lucy had Desmond set the alarms – Shaun condescendingly called it the monkey ground and was annoyed when they appropriated the term.

Alexine springs, hoping from crate to crate to reach a railing, Desmond following quickly with less finesse and more – leaping.

She huffed, sighed and letting the tension drain out of her like a popped balloon. “Just thrown off, is all. I wanted to see what happened to Kawera'shatste.” Obviously, she had lived to have children but had she made it back to her home before or after that?

“Besides, if you set aside the whole centuries old secret war between Templars and Assassins, the ancestral memories thing is very cool. I mean, if this in the hands of people who cared about genealogy and genuine betterment than this silly idea of controlling everyone, people could find out about their ancestors because we already know it all, we just can't get it at it. Especially for people who don't have proper records or immigrants' who names are unreliable traces.”

Desmond personally hadn't much investment in history or genealogy – he had been dead set on getting away from his terrible childhood and he felt a little guilt sink in at her enthusiasm.

She was right; a lot of good things could come from this technology if Abstergo and the Templars didn't have this insane, centuries long quest for conquering all of humanity.

Desmond joined her on the crate, slightly less fluid in his movements. “That would be nice,” he said neutrally as possible and she rolled her eyes, getting to her feet and leaping from the stacked crates to the walkway and then the bar suspended high above the floor.

“I want to know how you got from Altair in Syria to Ezio in Italy.”

He shrugs. “Immigration?”

“I mean, you have a whole Assassin bloodline.”

“You don't?” he asked before he could sensor himself.

“Well, apparently. Maybe. Kawera'shatste was one, obviously.” she said cheerfully. “My parents are more political activists these days but with the way they go on... I wouldn't be surprised if they were secretly assassins.” she paused. “Actually, that's kinda...disturbing to imagine. They're probably worried sick.”

“Or if they're assassins, someone told them you're safe.”

“Temporarily.” she smirked wryly and it was really fascinating how he could see her facial movement from two hundred feet below her. His vision was improving. “Hopefully.”

“...You're not angry?”

“At whom? My parents? I don't even know if my hunch is correct. Besides, I wanted nothing more than to ignore higher conspiracies and live simply, is that so much to ask?”

“I know how you feel,”

“I wasn't ready, if they are. Are assassins, I'm still not ready, but that is how the wheel turns. Life happens, you're not ready, deal with it.”

Desmond sympathizes. He ran away from this and it came back to bite him anyway. Hard. He supposes, she had been running away too, in a way but at least her parents seemed to care.

“Did...I mean, how was your childhood?”

“The usual. Guess I'm not going back to college,”

Desmond winced.

“Why do you ask?” she paused. “I guess your assassin heritage is more recent, huh?”

“Yeah. Very. I ran away,” Before she could say anything though, he changes the subject. “What about you, how's it going?”

Like Desmond, Alexine would be classified as 'ambiguously brown' but she called herself African-American, which was given away by her hair – what her grandmother called 'wooly'. Though, before Abstergo snatched her, she'd just gotten it braided into cornrows which she was now grateful for because it would be totally gross by now, anyway.

“The Templars in Edwardian London are looking a key to some sort of vault deep beneath London.” she explained. “The Assassin's there are pretty progressive, in some ways – she's welcome. It's disgusting though; the way they treat her – the Templars. She's fucking brilliant and the Mohawks already knew about the precursors. Sort of.”

"Well, Templars aren't our greatest allies," Desmond shrugged. "You should see the Borgia," 

She laughed. "Even in mainstream history, they were a mess." she swung up to a rafter, hanging by her legs. “Well, come on, assassin,” she teased. “I'll race you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've watched youtube videos of Assassin's Creed 1 and most of 2, some of Brotherhood then attempted to skip to the 3, did and realized I needed to finished Brotherhood and Revelations to know what the fuck was going on. Successfully watched all of Assassin Creed 4: Black Flag in one sitting (it's my favorite). Attempted to move to Assassin's Unity b/c there's no connection there but Arno...is just painful to watch, That being said, I'm far behind because I have no means to play these games so I have been spoiled on lots of things.


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